


The Rise and Fall of: My Chemical Romance

by 2_out_of_3



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Black Parade Era, Brothers, Depression, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Insomnia, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Paramour Mansion, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Drug Addiction, Past Drug Use, Sibling Bonding, Supernatural Elements, Swearing, Unreliable Narrator, sleep paralysis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:26:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1289443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2_out_of_3/pseuds/2_out_of_3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The making of 'The Black Parade', because to really understand it, we need to start from the beginning... the very beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction: Something to Show the World

**Author's Note:**

> I started this story a long, long time ago. Back in mid-2008 I posted the first of several chapters to what was then The Black Parade.net and in the end, it ended up becoming an abandoned work. This was and still is something that I have always wanted to write. As I found myself going through some of my old works and having a bit of spare time on my hands, I have decided to pick this story up again. This story won't be exactly the same to its original nor will it have the same plot direction as it did or would have had 5 and 1/2 years ago. Looking back, I think that's for the best. 
> 
> I can't make any solid promises as to the frequency of updates. I wish I could, but in the end, I know that was one of the many factors that left me leaving this unfinished. I can, however, promise that this will be completed. So whether you remember this story from so very long ago, once known as "So What are we Afraid Of?", will become familiar with "The Rise and Fall of: My Chemical Romance" on the beginnings of a new journey or maybe, perhaps a bit of both, I hope you will enjoy what this story has become.

* * *

 

 

 

#  **Introduction**

**“Something to Show the World”**

 

 

 

 

 

 

_“You have your whole life to write the first album, then, when you've discovered who you are, you extend and hone those ideas for your second. But to make the third you need to find yourselves all over again, you need to reinvent yourselves. You need to find what you fear the most—then you need to become it. So what are we afraid of?”_

 

\- Gerard Way, “Making The Black Parade

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

**M** eeting up with the guys for the next record, I never realised how much I'd missed them until we were all face to face. It wasn't like we didn't keep in touch; we called each other when we could and made short trips to visit when we had time. But when we parted, we had just gotten off this tour that just seemed to stretch on forever. I was still trying to keep myself clean and sober, so honestly after that last show, the last thing we wanted to see was each other. I needed time, time and space. We all did. I needed to pick up the pieces, put myself back together, and then figure out what I wanted.

 

XOXO       |           g-

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter One: Flash Backwards.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

#  **Chapter One**

 

 

**_"Flash Backwards."_ **

 

 

 

 

_“I think maybe we were afraid of what was coming. We had no idea what was coming.”_

Gerard Way, “ _Making The Black Parade_ ”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_Gerard Way_

_Queens, New York_

_Winter January 2006_

_Saturday 5:59 am_

 

 

The time, the place, it didn’t matter; none of it did. Not to Gerard at least. The only thing that had mattered, the only thought that came to mind was ‘run’. He didn’t know why, but he knew he couldn't stop. He had to keep going.

 

6:00 in the morning Gerard Way, who was now staring at the ceiling, thinks about his dream. He didn’t’ forget it. It was one of those dreams. The kind of dream that scared the shit out of you, but the harder you try to remember it, the faster it slips through your fingers. This dream terrified him, he didn't know why, but it really fucking terrified him.

 

Gerard knew he wasn't going back to sleep, waking up the way he did didn’t make that an option.

 

 _‘May as well get up.’_ He thought. Gerard got out of bed and headed down the stairs. There were still a few unpacked boxes loitering in the living room. A few weeks ago he'd recently rented and moved into a medium sized brownstone in Queens. The band was going to be spending a lot of time at S.I.R studios making the new record and it would have been a pain in the ass driving from Jersey to New York every day.

 

Gerard walked into his kitchen, turned his coffee maker on, and pulled out his favourite mug from the cabinet. A garishly coloured mug with the words 'Beauty Queen' printed on the side, a golden bejewelled crown hung lazily off the 'B'. Originally stuffed with an assortment of candy, it was a sort of gag gift from Mikey when Gerard had made it through the first six months without using or drinking.

 

The coffee began to slowly drip into the pot. As he waited, he glanced at the old pendulum clock hanging from the wall.

 

“Today’s the day.” He said aloud, moving to lean against the counter. “Just four more hours.”

 

Gerard and the rest of the band had planned to meet up at the S.I.R studios in New York City around 10 am. He had been waiting for this day for a very long time.

 

He really missed Ray, Frank, Mikey and Bob, and the daily text messages and phone calls every other weekend weren’t cutting it any more. It wasn’t the same and he really wanted to see them. It had been a month since Gerard or any of the guys had any free time to visit each other. It made the need to talk to them in person even stronger.

 

After the Revenge tour, everyone went their separate ways. They were exhausted and everyone was happy to be home, to eat real food, to have their own beds. Happy to have daily showers.

 

The stuttering gasps from the coffee maker indicated that Gerard’s drink was ready. He poured the coffee into his mug and dropped a strawberry pop-tart in the toaster. Considering it was pretty early, he wasn't feeling particularly hungry, but Gerard figured something was better than nothing.

 

He had about three and a half hours before he'd be meeting with the guys. Gerard drained the last of his coffee and poured a second cup. The toaster dinged. Gerard headed back up the stairs, pop-tart in one hand, coffee mug in the other, to get ready. He was nervous, excited but nervous.

 

 _'This is ridiculous.'_ He thought, setting the paper towel with half a pop tart on the dresser so he could riffle through his closet. _'These guys are my best friends, my brothers. For fuck's sake, one of them **is** my actual brother. There's no reason for me to be freaking out.'_

 

His anxiety shifted to worrying about being late, also ridiculous considering the amount of time he had to get ready. Still, he made an effort to leave the house with some extra time.

 

He found himself at the studio an hour early.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_“After the holidays had passed and a few phone conversations were exchanged, we met up at S.I.R studios in New York City to start sifting through the material for the next album. We missed each other a great deal and we exchanged stories and hugs. It was as if a group of survivors had met up for drinks, joking about that time they almost didn’t make it.”_

\- Gerard Way, “ _Making The Black Parade_ ”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_Gerard Way_

_New York, New York_

_Winter January 2006_

_Saturday 9:02 am_

 

 

Gerard's taxi pulled up to the studio. As he paid and stepped outside, he knew he was early. He walked into the building and headed toward the front desk in the lobby to check-in.

 

His identity confirmed, he was shown to where the band would be working. He thanked his escort and opened the door. He was surprised to find there was one person earlier than him. Mikey, who was sitting in the corner farthest from the door, startled and looked up from his phone when he heard the door opening. Seeing his brother, he smiled and stood up to greet him.

 

“Mikey!” Gerard exclaimed, eyes wide with surprise, clearly not expecting anyone to be there already. "What are you doing here?"

 

Mikey raised an eyebrow.

 

"Unless the band has taken a page from _Survivor_ and voted me out of the band, the same reason you're here Gee." He said sarcastically. "And hello by the way. Nice to see you too."

 

Gerard shook his head, clearing away the shock.

 

"Wow, sorry." He said, moving to hug his brother. "Hi, I totally didn't mean it like that. I really didn't expect anyone would be here before me."

 

Mikey returned the hug. “Yeah, I figured.” Laughing lightly as he pulled away from the embrace.

 

“Still, it’s nice to know the tribe hasn't spoken just quite yet.”

 

Gerard grinned. “Course not! The Way's are gatherers not hunters and everyone knows without them everybody's survival is pretty much fucked.

But look at you! I know you sent me pictures after the LASIK last month but still, it's like where did my geeky little brother go?"

 

Mikey rolled his eyes, looking slightly embarrassed. "It's not that big a change. And it's mostly ‘cause I had my hair cut and dyed."

 

Gerard snorted and laughed, "Mikey, I've known you since birth. I was _there_ when you tried out your first pair of glasses. Trust me, there's a _very_ big difference. It's a good different, but kid, no. You aren’t fooling anyone with the 'It's just the hair' line."

 

Mikey just huffed exasperatedly. "Why are you here so early anyway?" He asked, clearly searching for another topic.

 

 _'Don't think I don't know what you did there.'_ Gerard thought. He grinned and gave Mikey a knowing look but let it go and answered the question.

 

"Nerves, anxiety." He decided to forego mentioning the real reason he was up so early.

 

 _'No need to worry Mikey.'_ He thought. _'It was probably nothing anyway. Just a bad dream.'_ It was a lie and he knew it. But Gerard still held some small hope that if he tried hard enough, he could make himself believe it.

 

It wasn't going very well.

 

"Same here." Mikey agreed swiftly.

 

 _'A bit too swiftly.'_ Gerard thought, but he decided not to push. After all, his excuse didn't exactly have a good leg to stand on either and if he started asking Mikey questions, well, it would be only a matter of time until Mikey started to do the same. He let the matter drop, and instead brought up his brownstone in Queens.

 

When Gerard thinks back to this day, he really wished he'd asked.

 

As they caught up, the rest of the band started to arrive at the studio. Frank and Bob, coincidentally, arrived at the same time.

 

Frank took one look at Mikey's new appearance, grinned, and exclaimed "Mikey fuckin' Way everyone!"

 

Bob rolled his eyes while Mikey just glared, telling Gerard to shut up when he’d burst out laughing in response to Frank's comment.

 

"Seriously Gee, stop it!" Mikey exclaimed, still giving the stink eye to Frank.

 

Gerard tried, honestly he did, but when Frank started to point excitedly at Mikey, making faces when his brother wasn't looking, he was sent into another fit of uncontrollable laughter.

 

Mikey turned around, catching Frank in the middle of his teasing.

 

"I hate you. Both of you, I really, really do!"

 

"Who do you hate and what did they do?" Ray asked amused, as he walked in, taking in the scene before him.

 

It was officially a full house. It didn't take long for all five of them to start to reconnect. Chatting as if the lost time between had never happened.

 

They were at the start of something new, something exciting. They had started taking the first baby steps of a journey towards something bigger than themselves. Bigger than any of them had ever dreamt.

 

Gerard couldn’t wait.

 

 

 

 


	3. Teenagers

* * *

 

 

#  **Chapter Two**

 

###  **"Teenagers"**

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 **N** ew York at the time was bitterly cold; cold and wet. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to those kinds of winters. When walking outside with several layers still leaves you with a chill in your bones. I remember once stepping in a puddle of slush so deep and so cold I almost collapsed from shock. It wasn’t my best day. Still though, the beginnings of what would be known as The Black Parade were staring to come together. It was exciting, and I believe we all felt this way, to be holding the building blocks of what we knew would become something truly special. It wasn’t always easy. For as many days where everything seemed to click, to fall into place, we had just as many where nothing went right; or worse where nothing happened at all.

 

XOXO | g-

 

 

 

 

 

_Gerard Way_

_New York City, New York_

_Winter January 2006_

_Wednesday 2:44 pm_

 

 

 

 

_'Fucking hell!'_

 

Gerard stepped out the doors of S.I.R. and into the bitter cold New York air.

 

_'This is ridiculous.'_

 

He pulled the black scarf tied around his neck a bit tighter, adjusted his messenger bag, and shoved his gloved hands into the pockets of his thick winter coat, wishing, not for the first time, that he was back in his bed, thermostat cranked up to 80.

 

Gerard sighed miserably, his warm breath instantly turning to visible steam.

 

 _'Never did like the cold.'_ He thought, heading down the street, towards the closest subway entrance. It was the easiest way to get from S.I.R. to his brownstone in Queens.

 

He hated taking the subway.

 

Quite honestly it made him twitchy, paranoid, and more than a little nervous, especially when he was unfortunate enough to find himself riding during a time that coincides when school lets out.

 

Like today.

 

Gerard makes a right and crosses the road. As the entrance comes into view, he allows his thoughts to wander.

 

After about two weeks of commuting back and forth, shifting through the songs that they had, along with a few spontaneous late night visits, Gerard felt the band had a solid feel for the direction of the sound they wanted to create on the record.

 

They had spent the last several days working on Mama and the more it came together the more Gerard realized that they were raising the bar for themselves; exploring new territory, doing the impossible.

 

Creating music.

 

It was a good feeling, particularly since Gerard hadn't been able to adjust to living a normal life. The neighborhood he lived in was full of teenagers; something Gerard knew when he moved in, but never thought would ever make him feel so anxious. It put him on edge and stalled any progress he made towards adjusting. Those unpacked boxes are still sitting in his living room.

 

It was strange, Gerard felt as though he was going through the motions. It was as if he was just a second out of sync with the rest of the world, unable to connect with anyone anymore. It made Gerard feel old. He was only 28.

 

Gerard headed down the stairs leading into the subway; swiping his pass and breezing through the turnstiles once he'd reached the bottom.

 

He managed to just make the 3pm train, rather than his usual 3:10. Gerard quickly stepped aboard and grabbed a seat. Gerard looked around, noticing that there were only a few other people on the car. Gerard tried to relax as he pulled out his notebook and a pen. He started to cover the page with random doodles.

 

The train began to move. After about four stops in, all things considered, Gerard thought it was going fairly well, given his recently acquired social anxieties.

 

The train stops. The doors open, and the loud chatter from a large group of kids filled the car as they began to board.

 

 _'Fuck, I might have spoken too soon.'_ His hold tightened on the pen in his hand, knuckles going white as his breathing became erratic.

 

Gerard started to feel warm, then cold, then numb.

 

He was having a panic attack.

 

 _'Fuck, fuck, fuck...'_ He thought, unable to deter what he knew was already happening.

 

Gerard was sweating, his hands were tingling, he was starting to feel lightheaded.

 

In an attempt to deal with his panic attack and the crowd of noisy teenagers surrounding him, Gerard griped his notebook tighter, turned to a fresh page, put a shaky pen to paper, and started to write...

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_“Riding the subway into the city, I would often find myself nervous and paranoid, especially when school let out. It was pretty comical. One day while riding the train, the subway car filled with tons of school kids, I started to have a straight up panic attack. To deal with this I hid under my notebook and just started to write lyrics…”_

 

\- Gerard Way, “ _Making The Black Parade_ ”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 


	4. Interlude: Synchronicity

# Interlude

**“Synchronicity”**

 

_“We worked all day, every day. We would commute home only to start again the next day… There was always an idea, always a battle plan. I remember we played an arena in Chicago and this line “Mama, we all go to hell” just hit me, along with a melody. “The End” came shortly after, and we butted it against “DEAD!” and we had our start to the record... now we had to make some cuts.”_

 

\- Gerard Way, _“Making The Black Parade”_

 

* * *

 

 

**W** ith two albums under our belt, we had already figured out our writing process. We knew by now what worked and what didn’t, we learnt that when we were writing Bullets. I remember back then when we tried to “jam”. The end result turned out to be nothing short of a mess and we found out pretty quickly that it just wasn’t for us. Around this time we had about fourteen songs, some we obviously felt better about than others. We put most of our effort into those songs, trying to uncover what they could become.

 

Writing for the Black Parade was… different. Don’t get me wrong, when writing any album you find that there’s always a special quality, something that sets it apart from the record’s you’ve written in the past and the record’s you will write in the future. But I believe Black Parade forced us all to dig deeper, to work harder than any of our albums previously and, in the process, made us realize what we were capable of.

 

I had never felt so driven or so frustrated before, none of us had. It was madding and just the beginning of what was to be a long and perilous journey. Looking back at it now, I suppose it was a journey that we, as a band, needed to take. Even knowing now how painful it would be and all the dark days that were headed our way, I still wouldn’t change it.

 

It was an exceptional circumstance of synchronicity that allowed The Black Parade to become what it did, something that at the time, I was too caught up in to see. If I had to guess, I’d say it started with a show in Chicago, three songs, and a guy named Rob.

 

 

XOXO | g-


End file.
